


Pilgrimage

by oneill



Category: Demon's Souls
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:50:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneill/pseuds/oneill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of impressions from Astraea and Garl's journey into the Valley of Defilement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pilgrimage

The few who would speak of the valley said that Astraea would smell it long before she saw it, and that proved true. Rot-dampened wood, burning pitch, and the seeping sweetness of decay--these pointed the way better even than the ruts the rubbish carts had scraped into the floor of the black pine forest.

She hoped that her nose would tire of the smell by the time they reached the valley, that her mind would cease to notice it. Instead the smell lingered, became an ache in her head, a roiling in her belly. The line between revulsion and sickness blurred.

Their first step into the valley led onto an impromptu wooden platform that flexed beneath their feet. Garl took the lead. He stepped cautiously, ready to hop backward should the motley planks prove too fragile to support his weight. They often did. Astraea strained her ears, trying to follow the crumbling wood into the darkness, but she never heard it hit the bottom.

The first person they encountered lunged for Astraea, a rust-covered spike in hand. Astraea barely had time to register the attack before Garl slid in front of her, shield raised.

Her would-be assailant was thrown back by his own momentum and tumbled, coming to rest with one arm dangling over the edge of the platform. Astraea could barely hear the pained rattle of his breaths above the steady hiss of falling water.

One of the temple knights strode forward. Phoebe, Astraea realized, catching a glimpse of her profile.

"Wretch! How dare you attack Lady Astraea?"

Phoebe raised her halberd to deliver the finishing blow, but Astraea hurried forward.

"Stay your hand, please," she said, putting a hand on Phoebe's arm to still her.

"But, Honorable One--"

"Please. He wishes only to defend his home. Do not we all?"

Phoebe reluctantly withdrew, and Astraea glanced back at Garl. He nodded, so she walked up to the fallen man and knelt beside him. A red-brown crust covered his body; Astraea could not hope to tell the filth of the valley from his own skin. She reached a hand out to his gaunt back, hesitated, and felt ashamed for it.

His cool skin rasped her fingertips. She whispered a healing prayer, and his muscles relaxed involuntarily beneath her hand. His breaths eased.

Astraea stayed beside him until he struggled to his feet. His mask obscured his face, but his stance had something wary about it. At length, he backed away from them, spike held at the ready, and disappeared into the murk of the valley.

 

They faced several such attacks as they made their descent, but Bramd remained on Garl's back. These poor creatures were half-starved and weakened by disease. He needed only shield Astraea while she performed her miracles. The temple knights and priests soon fell into a similar pattern, though Astraea suspected they found this work as distasteful as the journey itself.

The attacks grew less frequent, then ceased altogether. For a time, they encountered no one as they traversed the platforms and ramps. Then the people of the valley began to approach again, in ones and twos, their empty hands raised in supplication. For the first time since she had entered the valley, Astraea felt a smile on her lips.

One of the people lurched up to her, cradling something small and silver in his hands. He held the offering up to Astraea, and she recognized it as a human soul. Her stomach churned anew.

"Thank you," she said, shaking her head, "but I cannot accept this."

The man persisted, until she finally accepted the gift. The soul felt weightless in her palm, and a soft glow radiated from its depths. Astraea shivered and placed it carefully in her pouch.

They crossed a bridge to find one of the valley's denizens waiting there: a woman, though it was nearly impossible to tell. Burning pitch coated the tip of her pole, but she showed no sign of aggression. She only waved her free hand at Astraea and the others, then turned to stagger down the path.

Garl said, "I think she means to guide us."

"Yes," Astraea said, answering the unvoiced question.

Their guide took them down through a building whose walls and floors were covered in black patches that squirmed in the torch light. Looking more closely, Astraea saw them for clumps of leeches, and hurried on.

 

On the floor of a rocky basin, in a pool of stagnant water, the leeches congregated most thickly. As she followed Garl down the winding pathway, Astraea saw that the leeches were gathering in one place to feed on something. An animal, she thought, about the size of a large horse. She could not see much of the hapless creature--leeches nearly covered it entirely--but she glimpsed smooth, silver skin. It seemed to be living yet; the mound of leaches undulated as the creature breathed steadily beneath them.

For a moment, she thought it might be a fallen storm beast. It appeared to have wings that ran the length of its body, and they flapped in calm rhythm to its breathing, dripping leeches into the fetid water as they moved. But she had never heard of a storm beast straying so far from their island home, and this creature's bloated mass could not possibly allow it to fly.

Astraea could not say why, but the sight of this strange creature unsettled her. It seemed she was not alone. She saw Phoebe bring a Faintstone to her lips and whisper, "Pray, let us pass through this accursed place unharmed. Umbasa."

Garl placed an arm around Astraea's shoulders and gently led her away.

 

"Let us rest here a moment," Garl said.

They stood on one of the small islands that littered the vastness of the swamp. Torchlight flickered in the distance--a town, perhaps.

Garl had no need of rest. Even before they had passed into the Fog, he could march a day and a night in full armor, and he had nothing to fear from poison or plague. Even Astraea's followers had the blessings on their weapons to keep them strong. Astraea had only her talisman, and she could feel the blight of the swamp seeping into her bones, making her weak.

She checked her supply of spices and decided against healing herself. The denizens of the valley had suffered far worse than she, for far longer.

Golden light enveloped her, temporarily dissolving the surrounding murk. A gentle warmth flooded her veins. Only now, as her jaw and shoulders relaxed, did Astraea realize how tense they had grown. Garl put away his talisman and sat beside her.

Astraea leaned into his shoulder. "This place," she said in a small voice. "I had heard it called 'Godforsaken,' but . . ."

"Yes." His voice was as quiet as her own.

"This _place_ . . ."

"Yes."

The water rippled as a jellyfish oozed past their island.

 

Their guide came to an abrupt stop and extinguished her torch in the swamp. She waved her hands over her head, then croaked in earnest as she pointed at the augites that Astraea and her followers wore at their waists.

After a moment, Astraea understood, and tucked her augite beneath the folds of her robes to hide its glow. The others followed suit. Seeming satisfied, their guide turned and led them across a footbridge. She hurried them past a hollow on their left; it was wick with slugs as big as guard dogs.

The cornucopia of slugs slithered toward Astraea and the others, drawn by the movement. The few that got within halberd range were easily dispatched, but Astraea could understand their guide's agitation. The slugs may have been slow, but they were also relentless. They moved as a single entity, the better to overwhelm their prey.

Astraea took a handful of guiding augites from her pouch and threw them at the far wall of the hollow. They flared to life, their vividness staggering amid the dull grime of the swamp. The slugs flocked to the augites as chickens to feed.

Back home, they _would_ have been chickens, and the swamp a panorama of rolling green.

 

When they at last reached the town at the heart of the swamp, their guide tried to persuade them to stay. They did for a time, just long enough to provide healing to the scores of people who lived in these creaking hovels. Offered souls piled at the hem of Astraea's robe.

Here and there, she glimpsed bits of scavenged beauty. One woman had painstakingly reconstructed a shattered window of stained glass. Polished to a perfect shine and arranged on the floor of her hut, the shards were the only clean things in the town.

 

Astraea and her followers ran out of spices before they could perform even a fraction of the needed miracles.

 _Please._ Astraea clutched her talisman. The edges bit into her palms, and blood ran down her wrists as offering. _Grant me strength. Allow me to be the manifestation of Your love in this wretched place, Dear Lord. Have mercy, I beseech you._

Her whole life had led up to this moment. She knew the rites. She knew the words.

She received no answer. Perhaps that was answer enough.

 

They came upon another strange, silvery creature. This one lay in the center of a broad wooden platform, in a dense cloud of flies. Perhaps it was a trick of the torchlight, but its wings seemed made of wood, and moved more stiffly than the previous one's. Three ridges of red spikes ran down its back. Astraea could not say whether it looked more like a maggot or a bloody hedgehog.

Feeling a now-familiar shiver of unease, Astraea circled around the creature and climbed down through the stony labyrinth that lay beyond. She had hoped that distance would calm her fears, but if anything, they intensified the farther she withdrew from the creature. Perhaps she drew nearer to something even worse.

Garl remained, as ever, a solid presence at her side.

She did not see the third silver creature, not until Garl pulled her out of the path of an oddly small, fanged mouth. Bramd swung down, crushing the creature, shattering the stone floor of the basin.

The creature unleashed a cacophony of chirping shrieks as it burst into a shower of pale green light. From somewhere in the heavens, or in the depths of the earth, or in the marrow of Astraea's bones, a roar rang out and shook the valley.

The air changed. The stench had not lessened at all (it had grown worse, here in the filth-encrusted depths), but the atmosphere felt less oppressive. Astraea's dread no longer threatened to overwhelm her.

In the place where the creature had lain, something small and silver gleamed. Astraea stooped to inspect it: a Demon's soul. It looked much the same as a human's, but at its heart glowed a tinge of red.

"Don't!"

Astraea glanced back over her shoulder at Phoebe, who dropped her gaze, seeming embarrassed by her outburst.

"I . . . I don't think you should touch that one, Lady Astraea," Phoebe said. "It feels different. Wrong. We should leave."

A murmur of agreement rose from the others--all except Garl, who remained silent and watchful.

Astraea scooped the soul up in both hands, and a voice in her head that was not her own said, _Mine?_

A rush of impressions flooded her mind, all of them fragmented, some indecipherable, but one perfectly clear: the sheer potential this soul held. Far greater than Astraea's own, greater than any human's, like a bottomless whirlpool drawing all else into it. It would be hers, if she would have it.

 _Yes,_ she told it, and gasped as tendrils of pure power threaded through her bloodied hands and into her veins.

"Lady Astraea!"

"What's happening?"

"What have you _done_?"

Their voices sounded muffled and distant, drowned out by the rolling trill in her ears, and for a moment Astraea thought she may lose consciousness. Mercifully, the fog in her head cleared, and she said, "Thank you for coming all this way with me. I will never forget any of you."

"Lady Astraea," Phoebe said. Her greaves clanked as she took a step closer. "What has happened to you?"

Astraea thought, _Am I so altered?_ She said, "Please, leave this place."

"I cannot." The tip of Phoebe's halberd scraped along the ground. "Answer my question."

"Please do not do this. Lower your weapon."

"I cannot."

The harsh clanking of scale armor announced Phoebe's charge.

 

The few who survived one blow from Bramd succumbed to plague before they could make it back to dry land, or else drowned because they could not lift their heads from the thick water. A handful possessed enough wisdom (or little enough courage) to flee without facing Garl, though Astraea feared the denizens of the valley would attack them now. It would have been better for them all to travel together. She offered a prayer for their safety, hoping that God still cared about them, at least.

She breathed a sigh, and it stunned her. She could no longer smell the swamp. No, it lingered yet, if she concentrated on it, but it had lost its force. Faint and familiar, it was now no more noticeable than the scent of her own skin.

She knew that ought to trouble her more than it did.

Holding her Demon soul in one hand so she could smooth her robes beneath her, Astraea sat on the rocky shelf that sloped into the lowest part of the swamp. Her soul trembled in her palm like a tiny heart--fragile, determined, and so very warm.

"My pilgrimage is at its end, Garl Vinland."

Astraea looked up at her protector. The light of her soul gleamed off his pristine armor; neither grime nor blood would cling to the dark silver. She looked down at her own scarlet-stained robes.

"I release you from your vow," she told him. "Go now, with my thanks."

He could not return to the Western Highlands--not after what he had done in her defense--but he could make a new life for himself in another land. Astraea felt certain of that. If only--

"I would stay by your side."

Astraea bit her lip. "Even if I wished you to leave?"

Garl remained silent for so long that Astraea stopped expecting an answer. Then he said, "Is that what you wish, dearest Astraea?"

Perhaps she _could_ make him leave. Perhaps one word from her was all it would take to send him into exile. But she lacked the strength to test their bond, when his voice was so fragile.

"I wish for you, at least, to escape this wretched place."

He sat across from her, and Astraea envied him the shelter of his visor. He said, "I do not."


End file.
